Mint Chocolate Aero Cakes

I was looking through my baking cupboard for some inspiration, and spied a mint chocolate Aero bubble bar. I'm really bad for purchasing sweets and chocolate randomly if it's something I think I could use on a cupcake. Or brownie. Or big cake cake. Or anything really. I say I spied it... what actually happened was that I opened the cupboard and it fell out... I took this to be a sign that it was time to use it. I've been using the Hummingbird chocolate cupcake recipe a fair bit recently, and thought it was time to experiment  bit and try adding my own twist to it. So I came up with these minty delights.

Ingedients:

(Makes 16)

Cupcakes:

200g Plain Flour

140g Caster Sugar

140g Light Muscovodo Sugar

40g Cocoa Powder (I used Bourneville)

1 Tsp Baking Powder
80g Butter/Stork (must be at room temperature)
240ml Milk (I used skimmed)
2 Eggs

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring 

Aero Bubble Bar (in mint)

Frosting:

350g Icing Sugar

175g Butter

2 Tsp Milk (I used skimmed)

1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring

Green food colouring

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (or 150 degrees for a fan oven) and prepare your muffin/cake tin. The recipe will do 16 medium sized cupcakes, but you can make 12 muffin sized cakes if you prefer.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, both kinds of sugar, butter, cocoa powder and baking powder until a nice sandy consistency is reached. In a separate bowl (or jug), beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and peppermint flavouring. Add about half this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined. Finally, add the remaining liquid and stir gently until smooth. 

I used an ice cream scoop to add mixture to each cupcake case. Then I placed a square of the Aero bubble bar in the middle of each case before adding more mixture to make the case 2/3 full. The Aero bubbles will work just as well. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cupcakes comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, cream together the butter and icing sugar. Separate this into two smaller bowls. To one, add the cocoa powder and to the other add the mint flavouring and food colouring, Mix these into the icing. Spoon the frosting into your piping back, alternating between the brown and the green. Once you have iced your cupcakes, top each with another piece of Aero. Eat.